iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Jon Evans

KiCad EDA @kicad.org · 22/07/2026

KiCad v11 will be gaining geometric constraints. This is based on the excellent library by @freecadnews.bsky.social planegcs. You can test-drive this feature in today's nightly builds downloads.kicad.org/kicad/

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Reposted by Jon Evans

David Lawrence @dlaw.me · 25/03/2026

I'm excited and humbled to share that I will be presenting a session on "Real-Time Rust on Research Robots" at RustConf 2026 in Montreal. I hope to see some of you there!

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Reposted by Jon Evans

KiCad EDA @kicad.org · 20/03/2026

KiCad version 10 is out today! Lots of features, lots of speed. We hope you like it. www.kicad.org/blog/2026/03...

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 17/02/2026

I do like the Shure SE215, I have also tried the SE315 and prefer the sound on the 215. I have used them in live shows as well as for mild hearing protection in a workshop, and have no complaints. I've replaced the cable once in about 7 years (nice that it's replaceable)

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 17/02/2026

I have used several kinds of universal ones, all with upgraded tips. I have found other earbuds uncomfortable but can wear these for many hours at a time without problems.

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 17/02/2026

Do you have a sense about if the pain is coming from the tips or the body of the in-ears? I used to think I would need to get custom shells to have both comfort and suitable noise isolation, but then I discovered switching out the stock silicone tips on my SE215 for foam ones (I think from Comply)

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Reposted by Jon Evans

KiCad EDA @kicad.org · 31/10/2025

www.kicad.org/blog/2025/10...

Cartoon trick or treaters receiving KiCad version 9.0.6. Caption says "No Tricks, Only Treats This Year"

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 04/10/2025

You can convert arbitrary graphics into rule areas, does this help? E.g. Draw circle, right click, create from selection, rule area

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Reposted by Jon Evans

Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

The race for Mayor of the Community Path grows heated.

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 30/03/2025

Obsidian works well for me

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 19/03/2025

That's probably what I would try first.

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Reposted by Jon Evans

Diana @lesbian.dev · 06/03/2025

The FAA is a dumpster fire when it comes to mental health. This is an amazing and heartbreaking video by @xylafoxlin.bsky.social speaking up about her experience and the struggle of mental health in the aviation community. www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj0H...

youtube.com

The FAA is in Crisis

YouTube video by Xyla Foxlin

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 25/01/2025

City of Lost Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 17/01/2025

If you want to check it out, there is an overview at dev-docs.kicad.org/en/apis-and-... and you can find the Python bindings at gitlab.com/kicad/code/k... (and published on PyPI) Documentation and tutorials are still scarce, so this is for the more adventurous at the moment :)

dev-docs.kicad.org

KiCad IPC API | Developer Documentation | KiCad

KiCad IPC API The IPC API is an interface that can be used to remotely control a running instance of KiCad. This can be used to implement KiCad plug-ins as well as to interface KiCad with external sof...

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 17/01/2025

While it doesn't come with many shiny new features vs. the old SWIG API (yet), it does represent a huge step forward: a stable API that we can maintain over time rather than something fragile that could break plugins with every KiCad release.

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 17/01/2025

I've been building a new API for #KiCad for the past year, and we're getting ready to release the first version of it with V9 at the end of the month!

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 17/01/2025

Wow, that's an old one! The kapton window on the front is the protective layer that gives you a chance to not break the beryllium window on the actual x-ray detector. They are replaceable because if you keep pressing it into a pile of metal or mineral bits they tend to puncture.

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Reposted by Jon Evans

Matt Keeter @mattkeeter.com · 08/01/2025

I've just announced my new (blazing-fast) kernel for implicit surfaces: mattkeeter.com/projects/fid... It's got something for everyone: Cool graphs! Multithreaded WebAssembly! Terrible mesh topology! JIT compilers! After three years, I'm excited to finally show it off to a wider audience 😎

Screenshot of a window showing two panes: on the left is a script, and on the right is a fidget spinner

A wireframe mesh of an architectural cross-section

Marge Simpson, holding a squishy cube-sphere-intersection, with the caption "I just think they're neat!"

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 31/12/2024

I still haven't found a reason to move off of Alfred

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 28/12/2024

I haven't noticed any issues yet, other than areas where Altium has some feature KiCad doesn't (e.g. if you use custom padstacks, they aren't supported in KiCad 8 and those pads will be interpreted as if they weren't custom -- although that one is fixed in the upcoming version 9)

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 28/12/2024

As someone who uses both: have you tried directly adding your Altium libs to KiCad? It has helped make it easier to adopt KiCad at work for me.

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 22/12/2024

We only officially support platforms that at least one of the developers uses and wants to support. KiCad should work fine on ARM Linux devices but we don't test it.

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Reposted by Jon Evans

KiCad EDA @kicad.org · 22/12/2024

The KiCad project is excited to announce the first release candidate for the next major version is available for testing. Version 9.0.0 is expected to be released by 01/31/25. New features can be found here forum.kicad.info/t/post-v8-ne... Packages are available www.kicad.org/download/

forum.kicad.info

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 22/12/2024

The first release candidate for #kicad 9 is available! More info over on the forum: forum.kicad.info/t/stable-ver...

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 14/12/2024

Can you share a screenshot of a place where you are thinking you might want to use a bus?

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 14/12/2024

I was planning on writing about that sometime. Are any things about it particularly confusing?

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 14/12/2024

What KiCad features are the most mysterious to you?

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 13/12/2024

We aim for a new major version every year around the start of February

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 08/12/2024

KiCad 9 will visualize some DRC errors in a more clear way. Shown here is a new creepage test, which particularly benefits from this. Thanks to Fabien Corona for these two additions.

A screenshot of the KiCad PCB editor in a recent nightly build, showing a creepage violation in the DRC dialog as well as the actual creepage path that was calculated.

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 05/12/2024

The chamfer feature I posted about earlier works on polygon shapes / zone outlines. There is an existing feature to fillet tracks. The regular drag tool can chamfer tracks.

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 04/12/2024

Multi-track drifting, er, dragging coming to KiCad 9! Video and code courtesy of Tom W :)

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 04/12/2024

$2.2MM scope and the higher memory depth is still an optional add-on :D

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Reposted by Jon Evans

adafruit @adafruit.com · 03/12/2024

Giving Tuesday – KiCad open-source design #GivingTuesday 💻🔧🌍❤️🤝 #electronics

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 03/12/2024

An initial version of the new API will be released alongside V9. The goal is to roughly match the capabilities of the existing SWIG APIs in the PCB editor, although there will be some places where the new API has a feature the old one doesn't and vice versa. More API in V9 point releases.

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 02/12/2024

KiCad 9 will also come with a ton of smaller tweaks and quality-of-life improvements, like this Chamfer feature added by John Beard:

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 01/12/2024

A new feature coming to the schematic editor in KiCad 9: rule areas, contributed by James Jackson. These allow you to do things like assign net classes to a number of nets at once (even if the nets are not themselves named)

A screenshot of the schematic editor in a KiCad nightly build, showing a rule area assigning the netclass RAM_ADDR to a set of 8 net wires

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 28/11/2024

KiCad 9 also will bring the selection filter to the schematic and symbol editors. This adds another workflow to edit multiple things in bulk (for example: set the filter to Pins, hit Ctrl+A to select all pins, and edit their properties in the Properties Panel)

Screenshot of a KiCad nightly build showing the symbol editor and schematic editor windows, with the properties panel attached to the left of the graphical editing canvases and the new selection filter appearing below the properties panel

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 28/11/2024

Try change the import scale in the dialog from 1.0 to something like 0.03937

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 28/11/2024

Yes, that's the point (rather than having to create a shape on the mask layer manually)

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 26/11/2024

Another nice feature coming to #KiCad 9: The Zone Manager, contributed by Ethan Chien. This dialog lets you quickly check and re-arrange the fill order (priority) of all the copper zones in a board, and includes a graphical preview so you can more easily tell what zone you have selected.

A screenshot of the Zone Manager dialog in KiCad nightly, showing a copper zone's properties, a graphical preview of the zone fill, and a re-orderable list of zone priorities

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 25/11/2024

KiCad 9 also adds the ability to mark a track on an outer layer as having no soldermask. You could do this before by copying the shapes to the mask layer, but this is much faster. Thanks to Andrzej Wolski for contributing this feature.

Screenshot of KiCad showing a copper track with soldermask removed, in the 2D and 3D views

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 24/11/2024

Note that if all you need is removing pad circles on unconnected layers, you can already do this in version 8!

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 24/11/2024

Another thing coming to KiCad 9 is custom padstacks. While you've been able to completely remove unconnected pads from a layer in recent versions, sometimes the situation calls for different shapes or sizes within the same pad. I'm looking forward to having this flexibility.

Screenshot of KiCad 3D viewer, showing several through-hole pads with different shapes on 4 different copper layers

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 20/11/2024

#KiCad 9 will have a native multichannel feature! (video by Tom W)

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Reposted by Jon Evans

KiCad EDA @kicad.org · 19/11/2024

Hey Folks! We're getting close to tagging 8.0.7 for release. You can help test for bugs by using an 8.0 testing release and reporting any issues. As a bonus, you get all the older bugs fixed. downloads.kicad.org/kicad/window... downloads.kicad.org/kicad/macos/... launchpad.net/~kicad/+arch...

downloads.kicad.org

Downloads | KiCad EDA

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Jon Evans @craftyjon.com · 14/11/2024

Always about what's the best fit for the product at hand :)

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